Sharon Osbourne said she was “furious” with Simon Cowell after she turned down an opportunity to appear on The Masked Singer before she was dumped from The X Factor.
Former X Factor judges Osbourne and Louis Walsh, who are both appearing on ITV’s Celebrity Big Brother, have shared their thoughts about X Factor creator Cowell.
Osbourne, who starred in the first four series of the UK talent show and sporadically thereafter, said she would never again appear on a Cowell show “not for all the money in the world”.
Long-serving judge Walsh, who spent more than a decade at the helm of The X Factor, said “I haven’t talked to him at all, nothing, zero,” referring to Cowell.
Osbourne said: “But that’s Simon. He cuts you off. He doesn’t know how to keep friends.”
Walsh said singer Sinitta Malone is “very loyal” to Cowell, while Osbourne said she “dedicated her life to him”.
When asked whether she was on The Masked Singer, Osbourne said: “Why do you think I’m so f****** mad with Simon, because that year that you and I were contracted to do X Factor, it was the first year of The Masked Singer and they asked me to do it in America and I said I can’t, because I had Simon.
“So then they casted it and then when Simon, well he didn’t call, but when they called and said no you’re not doing it, I missed a huge gig. That’s why I was furious.
“Because do you remember that year, everything in the press, ‘they’re old’, young blood, and I went mad when they told me. I went mad. And then he called me. He was trying to sweet talk me.
“He would always (want) change, change, change, well you’re the one that needs changing mate.
“Look, somebody that dresses the same for probably three decades you would say, they don’t see that it’s not right, nobody’s going to tell him, but everything is the same, the same, the same.”
Osbourne mimicked a few of Cowell’s infamous lines from The X Factor, including asking contestants if they have a second song.